MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) believes that Advisor to the head of Russia's Roscosmos State Space Agency Ivan Safronov and political scientist Demuri Voronin handed information on the activities of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria over to Germany's intelligence, Safronov's lawyer Ivan Pavlov told reporters.
"Before the investigation came to an end, a new final charge was brought against reporter Ivan Safronov. Apart from him handing information over to "a Czech intelligence officer," there is now one more episode. According to investigators, in December 2015, Safronov handed some information about the activities of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria over to political scientist Demuri Voronin, who, in turn, sent it to representatives of Switzerland's Zurich University and Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND). The FSB claims that the data could have been used to analyze the activities of Russian troops in Syria. The prosecution says that Voronin paid a reward of $248 to Safronov for the information," the lawyer noted.
Pavlov also pointed out that political scientist Voronin, who holds Russian and German passports, had been arrested in February 2021 on high treason charges. Several dozen Russian political analysts and journalists cooperated with his consulting agency. "According to some sources, after his arrest, he made a confession that the investigation can use in its own interest," the lawyer added.
News broke on Monday that the FSB had completed an investigation against Safronov and handed the case files to the defendant and his lawyers for information purposes. Later, the case will be submitted to the prosecution for approval.
Safronov denies all the high treason-related charges, his lawyer Dmitry Talantov told TASS. "Our position is the following: what the investigators view as high treason actually constituted regular journalist work," he said.
Advisor to the head of the Roscosmos State Space Agency Ivan Safronov, a former reporter for the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers, was arrested on July 7, 2020. According to the FSB, he was recruited by a Czech intelligence agent in 2012 to collect information on Moscow’s defense cooperation with African countries and the activities of Russia's Aerospace Forces in the Middle East. The case files say that Safronov had worked for the Czech Republic’s External Relations and Information Directorate, but it was the United States who was the ultimate recipient of this classified information. Safronov has pled not guilty.
